The construction, validation and application of a Subjective Stress Scale

Abstract

In order to obtain a statistically manipulable measure of a subject's affective reaction under field experimental conditions, a scale was constructed based on the Thurstone scaling technique commonly applied to attitudinal measurement. Items were scaled along a dimension of affect which ranged equidistantly in both positive and negative directions from a literal indifferent point. Reliability was obtained by use of alternate forms. Efforts were made to utilize both contrived and natural situations in order to test application of the scale. Four such situations were utilized for validation and reliability purposes. The scale detected significant affective changes in those situations which were judged stressful by the experimenters but independent assessment of the situations is still lacking. The rapidity and ease of administration in addition to the interpretative possibilities encourage further applications of the scale.

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